he watersupply, epidemics, mild
at first, broke out and the diseases were carried and spread by the
refugees.

Cattlemen, uncertain there would be either stockyards or working
butchers, held back their shipments. Truckfarmers found it simpler and
more profitable to supply local depots catering at fantastic prices to
the needs of the fugitives, than to depend on railroads which were
already overstrained and might consign their highly perishable goods to
rot on a siding. Los Angeles began to starve. Housewives rushed
frantically to clean out the grocer's shelves, but this was living off
their own fat and even the most farsighted of hoarders could provide for
no more than a few weeks of future.

So even those not directly evicted or frightened by its proximity began
moving away from the grass. But they still had possessions and they
wanted to take them along, all of them, down to the obsolescent console
radio in grandma's room, the busted mantelclock--a weddingpresent from
Aunt Minnie--in the garage and the bridgelamp without a shade which had
so long rested in the mopcloset. All of this taxed an already
overstrained transportation system. Since it was entirely a oneway
traffic, charges were naturally doubled and even then shippers were
reluctant to risk the return of their equipment to the threatened zone.
The greed to take along every last bit of impedimenta dwindled under the
impact of necessity; possessions were scrutinized for what would be
least missed, then for what could be got along without; for the
absolutely essential, and finally for things so dear it was not worth
going if they were left behind. This last category proved surprisingly
small, compact enough to be squeezed into the family car--"Junior can
sit on the box of fishingtackle--it's flat--and hold the birdcage on his
lap"--as it made ready to join the procession crawling along the clogged
highways.

_Time_, reporting the progress of the weed, said in part: "Death, as it
must to all, came last week to cult-harboring, movie-producing Los
Angeles. The metropolis of the southwest (pop. 3,012,910) died
gracelessly, undignifiedly, as its blood oozed slowly away. A shell
remained: downtown district, suburbs, beaches, sprawling South and East
sides, but the spirit, heart, brain, lungs and liver were gone;
swallowed up, Jonah-wise by the advance of the terrifying Bermuda grass
(TIME Aug. 10). Still at his post was sunk-eyed W. (for William) R. (for
Rufus) Le